Slovenská republika a Európska únia
The Slovak Republic and the European Union

Author(s): Ján Figeľ
Subject(s): Politics, International relations/trade, Evaluation research, EU-Accession / EU-DEvelopment
Published by: Research Center of the Slovak Foreign Policy Association (RC SFPA)
Keywords: Slovakia; 2000; EU; integrations; progress; evaluation; France; Portugal; presidency;
Summary/Abstract: The jubilee year 2000 brought a crucial qualitative improvement in the field of the European integration. Opening the official accession negotiations in February 2000 was a historical moment. Of great importance is also the fact that in 2000 the European Union initiated two negotiations with the Slovak Republic concerning 16 chapters, whereby 10 of them were preliminary closed. The Slovak Republic along with Malta reached a leading position in the group of countries that had opened the negotiations in 2000 and at the same time with its number of closed chapters got nearer to the countries that had opened the negotiations with the EU in 1998. The next important milestone in the process of the European integration was the December summit in Nice. Its conclusions not only confirmed a historical importance of the EU and a flexible attitude of the EU towards the issue of a faster proceeding of the best prepared candidates in the negotiation process but also an agreement was reached upon the institutional reform of the EU removing obstacles that might restrain the EU enlargement upon all contemporary candidates negotiating the accession.

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